Car Washing Girls

My car looks great, thanks to a pair of car washing girls. This wasn't totally a labor of love ... Maggie lost her bookbag at Westridge that contained all her books for 8th grade summer reading - Malcolm X, Farewell to Manzinar, Of Mice and Men and Infinite Jest. She looked everywhere, in every lost and found at school, but couldn't find it. To her credit, she felt awful. So ... we gave her a bunch of jobs to make up the money. Sally joined in for fun. Right now they're cleaning off all the outdoor furniture.

Walden Family Photo

This is the family photo taken at Walden this year. Each family was asked to bring something for the picture that was important to them. Sally brought Holly. Maggie brought her headphones. That says it all right there.

The Great American Pastime ...

... is lost on us. We went to a Dodger game a few weeks ago, it was a beautiful night, we had great seats... but we only made it through the 5th inning. I like baseball, so does Tony, but Maggie ... she ate sushi and brought a book to read ... Sally ... well as long as there was cotton candy Sally was okay ... and she liked it when people hit beach balls ... but the game ... sigh ... not for this group ...

giddy up

Ever since our hoedown(I'll post pictures soon), Sally has been playing cowgirl alot. She puts on her hat and shirt and gets a cat toy as a lasso and rides Pam, her big stuffed horse. I'm going to get her some boots to complete the look because she's taking a week of horseback riding camp in August.

New York weekend

Maggie and I went to New York at the end of April to see some shows and my mom and sister and her two daughters joined us. We had so much fun! We got two adjoining rooms and the older girls(me, Sue and my mom) shared a room so that the younger ones(Maggie, Kate and Sarah) could sleep in. We saw American Idiot the first night and LOVED it, Next to Normal the next night and LOVED it and Hair the next day, more LOVE. Maggie and Kate went back to American Idiot the last night while me, Sue and my mom met Kate for dinner. (Sarah was sick and stayed at the hotel). There was a little drama the last night because the girls were at the theater on 45th street, which is exactly where the van parked with explosives was. And so all the streets surrounding 45th street were shut down so the girls had to take a very round about way to get to the restaurant where they were meeting us. But they made it and all was well. We're already planning our next trip which I think will be the end of August. And we've totally turned Sally on to Next to Normal.

Lover not a Fighter

Sally and I had a little fight this morning about something ... I can't even remember ... and she stormed into her room, and I stormed downstairs, and about a minute later when I came back up, here's what I found written on the bathroom window with the post shower steam. Sally is always writing us notes to tell us how much she loves us and leaves them different places -under our pillows, in my purse. The most heartbreaking one was a few days ago to Tony who has been on the set for the past two weeks, which means he's barely home. Under his pillow she left a note saying "I miss you. I feel like I have no dad. And you are the most awesome dad ever." Heartbreaking! Also a few months ago Tony and I were having a fight in the office and when we came out, Sally was standing there holding two notes, one for me, one for Tony. Mine said, "Mom, do you still love dad?" with a yes/no box to check, his said "Dad do you still love mom?" We filled them out and she handed the responses to each of us, like, see, you still love each other, phew! I love how Sally expresses herself!

Tin Man

Okay, this is weird I know, but ... our friend Laurie gave us this big stuffed Tin Man doll a few years ago. He has these really piercing, violet eyes and when he's looking at you, it's super creepy. Anyway, I don't remember how it happened but a few years ago we started playing tricks on each other with Tin Man. One night Maggie, Sally and I snuck out and put him in the passenger seat of Tony's car so he'd be there to surprise him in the morning. Sally liked to put him in my bed, under the covers, we stood him up in Maggie's closet so when she went in to get an outfit, there he was. You get the idea. Hijinks. And then a few years ago we made a book about the Tin Man coming in and taking over Maggie's life while she's away at camp. Takes over her bedroom, her laptop, her friends ... and then we snuck the book into her suitcase for her to find when she got up to camp and unpacked. She loved it, her whole cabin loved it, Tin Man has become an unofficial Camp Birchwood mascot. Anyway, this year .... shhhhh .... we're going to sneak the man himself into her duffel! Here are some pictures from last years book.